AP-Linux jack rack alternative...

[soundspawner]

Hi,

I'm not sure if chose the correct subforum to post this in, feel free to move it if necessary
So, I installed Audiophile Linux v5 on my Lenovo desktop. Out of the box it works really well but unfortunately it isn't very stable when it comes to install anything after the installation, it easily breaks packages, libraries etc. so many times a re-install is needed.

I have a Cambridge Dacmagic PLUS USB DAC connected to my PC. On Ubuntu I could use qjackctl and jack-rack to load LADSPA plugins so that the whole output was affected (that is what I want) using a certain ladspa plugin.
However, it seems jack-rack doesn't want to install on AP-linux (it's based on Arch linux btw)
It always couldn't verify the PGP keys or returned 404 errors using the arch linux repositories.

I was wondering if there's any alternative or solution to get what I want. using JACK is fine (qjackctl seems to be installed by default) but via ALSA should be fine as well. On Pulseaudio you have pulse-effects, I'd love to use an alternative for that using jack or alsa. I was hoping someone could help me out. I tried the FAQ + comments on the official AP-Linux website but unfortunately replies are closed so i cannot post a question there...

Thanks in advance!

[tramp]

Some things didn't work out. Arch linux, jack-rack and LADSPA sounds like trouble at all. Arch Linux is blending age while jack-rack and LADSPA is old-old-stable.
You may want to checkout Carla and LV2 plugins when using Arch to fetch the latest blending age plugs and host.

[soundspawner]

Some things didn't work out. Arch linux, jack-rack and LADSPA sounds like trouble at all. Arch Linux is blending age while jack-rack and LADSPA is old-old-stable.
You may want to checkout Carla and LV2 plugins when using Arch to fetch the latest blending age plugs and host.

Thanks! I am gonna try that. Also, I forgot to mention that I'm not "married" to a specific Linux distro or something when it comes high quality audio. If there's a better solution that arch/ap-linux I'd give that a try as well. Apart for KXstudio. i don't need a lot of audio apps, I aim for the best possible audio quality.

So, basically what I need is:

• linux distro with high quality audio core - RT core.
• 32 bits/floating point processing
• ladspa/lv2 plugin host (or bette yet something similar as Pulseeffects but for JACK/ALSA
• a bonus would be (if it doesn't interfere with the audio quality) the ability to watch HD youtube vids and HD video's in general, with all audio run through the plugins of my choice.

[Impostor]

So, basically what I need is:

• linux distro with high quality audio core - RT core.
• 32 bits/floating point processing
• ladspa/lv2 plugin host (or bette yet something similar as Pulseeffects but for JACK/ALSA
• a bonus would be (if it doesn't interfere with the audio quality) the ability to watch HD youtube vids and HD video's in general, with all audio run through the plugins of my choice.

Choice of kernel does not affect audio quality. RT or low latency kernels provide better latency, which is irrelevant if you do not play/record audio or midi "live". And even if you do, a generic kernel may be entirely sufficient, with the usual RT performance tweaks. Regarding audio (listening) quality, a good pair of headphones makes all the difference. The rest is nonsense.

[DiyellJ]

Looking at the Audiophile Linux web page, V5 was released in 2019, and nothing has been released since. Given the forum is closed, it appears to be an abandoned project. This is probably why you are not having success installing applications; the base is too old; libraries and etc. have changed too much.

So, I would suggest you use a different base.

If you like Arch, in the ArchWiki there is a comprehensive post on how to set up Arch for pro audio.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Professional_audio

AVL-MX21 is a complete pro audio distro; read the manual, install, and you're ready to go. It's used by many here, and the creator is active on this forum.
http://www.bandshed.net/avlinux/

Also:
LibraZik: https://librazik.tuxfamily.org/base-sit ... nglish.php
Fedora Jam: https://labs.fedoraproject.org/en/jam/
Ubuntu Studio: https://ubuntustudio.org/

With a little more work:
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, with GeekosDAW; Devs are active on this forum: https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/apps/all/geekosdaw

All of these are well up to date.

[soundspawner]

Looking at the Audiophile Linux web page, V5 was released in 2019, and nothing has been released since. Given the forum is closed, it appears to be an abandoned project. This is probably why you are not having success installing applications; the base is too old; libraries and etc. have changed too much.

So, I would suggest you use a different base.

If you like Arch, in the ArchWiki there is a comprehensive post on how to set up Arch for pro audio.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Professional_audio

AVL-MX21 is a complete pro audio distro; read the manual, install, and you're ready to go. It's used by many here, and the creator is active on this forum.
http://www.bandshed.net/avlinux/

Also:
LibraZik: https://librazik.tuxfamily.org/base-sit ... nglish.php
Fedora Jam: https://labs.fedoraproject.org/en/jam/
Ubuntu Studio: https://ubuntustudio.org/

With a little more work:
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, with GeekosDAW; Devs are active on this forum: https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/apps/all/geekosdaw

All of these are well up to date.

many thanks for your extensive answer. I checked a few of the mentioned distro's out but the only thing I see is the focus on low audio latency and a lot of (for me) unnecessary audio apps that comes with the distro. What I seek is a distro which by default installs only the very basic necessities and that the overall sound quality is as high as possible. That's why I liked AP-linux though it was a bit too minimalistic and therefore quite unstable and sadly not maintained anymore.

[merlyn]

... You may want to checkout Carla and LV2 plugins when using Arch to fetch the latest blending age plugs and host. ...

Did you mean bleeding edge? Arch is not bleeding edge. It's cutting edge. There are testing repos that can be enabled if a user wants bleeding edge, but the main repos work well in my experience.

[GuntherT]

What I seek is a distro which by default installs only the very basic necessities and that the overall sound quality is as high as possible.

What was it about AP Linux that provided higher sound quality than any other distro? I am dubious of claims such as this:

"The unnecessary services and daemons, included in standard Linux distributions, have been removed and their negative influence on audio playback made impossible."

How do services and daemons affect audio playback quality? That doesn't seem possible to me. The biggest factors in sound quality are the speakers and the listening room treatment, or which headphones you use. The distro should have no audible effect, and just about any distro is as capable as another for audio playback provided the sound server is setup correctly.

If you are looking for a basic distro, I would recommend an expert install of Debian 12 (go to Advanced Options in the first menu that appears upon booting the installation media and select Graphical Expert Install). When you get to the "Select and Install Software" step, uncheck the Desktop Environment, Gnome, and Standard System Utilities boxes, and just check the box for XFCE. Yesterday I was able to install this on a 32-bit 1.7 GHz Single-Core Pentium M laptop from 2006. I tweaked the layout to my liking, installed Sound Juicer, and now the only computer I own with a disc drive can rip and tag CDs into FLAC files for those few albums I own that aren't available via streaming services. The OS is surprisingly snappy for how old the hardware is.

On another modern laptop, I did this but checked no boxes on the "Select and Install Software" step. I chrooted into the target before finishing the installation, and installed a very lean Openbox/Tint2 desktop with LightDM. The amount of additional configuration steps needed to get an OS as barebones as that one up and running is time consuming and doesn't yield noticeable performance gains given how capable modern hardware is. If you don't enjoy the process of tinkering like I do, you're better off just going with Debian's default XFCE setup, or LXQt if you prefer a Qt desktop versus GTK. If it is snappy on a 17-year-old laptop, it will fly on a modern one. Software availability in Debian is on par with Arch, but on Debian you won't suffer the consequence of a borked system if you go too long between updates.

So, basically what I need is:

• linux distro with high quality audio core - RT core.
• 32 bits/floating point processing
• ladspa/lv2 plugin host (or bette yet something similar as Pulseeffects but for JACK/ALSA
• a bonus would be (if it doesn't interfere with the audio quality) the ability to watch HD youtube vids and HD video's in general, with all audio run through the plugins of my choice.

As someone else mentioned, a realtime setup has no effect on audio playback quality. It is needed when monitoring live instruments routed through a computer to reduce latency.

Ardour utilizes 32-bit floating point processing, but that application is used for recording audio. If I were to record myself playing instruments in Ardour and exported the project as two .wav files, one at 24-bit 96kHz and one at 16-bit 44.1kHz, they would sound identical. It is proven that 16-bit 44.1kHz audio plays back perfectly within the range of human hearing. 24-bit 96kHz HD audio file releases only sound different compared to their original 16-bit 44.1kHz counterparts because of changes made to the material during the remastering process. I don't see how 32-bit floating point processing could make any audible difference during playback and likely isn't something worth concern.

A plugin host can be downloaded here:

https://kx.studio/Applications:Carla

In order to route it to different applications, such a web browser, you will need to install JACK and a patch bay and configure them to connect to Pulseaudio. I believe all of that gets handled by installing this application:

https://kx.studio/Applications:Cadence

[soundspawner]

What I seek is a distro which by default installs only the very basic necessities and that the overall sound quality is as high as possible.

What was it about AP Linux that provided higher sound quality than any other distro? I am dubious of claims such as this:

"The unnecessary services and daemons, included in standard Linux distributions, have been removed and their negative influence on audio playback made impossible."

How do services and daemons affect audio playback quality? That doesn't seem possible to me. The biggest factors in sound quality are the speakers and the listening room treatment, or which headphones you use. The distro should have no audible effect, and just about any distro is as capable as another for audio playback provided the sound server is setup correctly.

If you are looking for a basic distro, I would recommend an expert install of Debian 12 (go to Advanced Options in the first menu that appears upon booting the installation media and select Graphical Expert Install). When you get to the "Select and Install Software" step, uncheck the Desktop Environment, Gnome, and Standard System Utilities boxes, and just check the box for XFCE. Yesterday I was able to install this on a 32-bit 1.7 GHz Single-Core Pentium M laptop from 2006. I tweaked the layout to my liking, installed Sound Juicer, and now the only computer I own with a disc drive can rip and tag CDs into FLAC files for those few albums I own that aren't available via streaming services. The OS is surprisingly snappy for how old the hardware is.

On another modern laptop, I did this but checked no boxes on the "Select and Install Software" step. I chrooted into the target before finishing the installation, and installed a very lean Openbox/Tint2 desktop with LightDM. The amount of additional configuration steps needed to get an OS as barebones as that one up and running is time consuming and doesn't yield noticeable performance gains given how capable modern hardware is. If you don't enjoy the process of tinkering like I do, you're better off just going with Debian's default XFCE setup, or LXQt if you prefer a Qt desktop versus GTK. If it is snappy on a 17-year-old laptop, it will fly on a modern one. Software availability in Debian is on par with Arch, but on Debian you won't suffer the consequence of a borked system if you go too long between updates.

So, basically what I need is:

• linux distro with high quality audio core - RT core.
• 32 bits/floating point processing
• ladspa/lv2 plugin host (or bette yet something similar as Pulseeffects but for JACK/ALSA
• a bonus would be (if it doesn't interfere with the audio quality) the ability to watch HD youtube vids and HD video's in general, with all audio run through the plugins of my choice.

As someone else mentioned, a realtime setup has no effect on audio playback quality. It is needed when monitoring live instruments routed through a computer to reduce latency.

Ardour utilizes 32-bit floating point processing, but that application is used for recording audio. If I were to record myself playing instruments in Ardour and exported the project as two .wav files, one at 24-bit 96kHz and one at 16-bit 44.1kHz, they would sound identical. It is proven that 16-bit 44.1kHz audio plays back perfectly within the range of human hearing. 24-bit 96kHz HD audio file releases only sound different compared to their original 16-bit 44.1kHz counterparts because of changes made to the material during the remastering process. I don't see how 32-bit floating point processing could make any audible difference during playback and likely isn't something worth concern.

A plugin host can be downloaded here:

https://kx.studio/Applications:Carla

In order to route it to different applications, such a web browser, you will need to install JACK and a patch bay and configure them to connect to Pulseaudio. I believe all of that gets handled by installing this application:

https://kx.studio/Applications:Cadence

Many thanks for your suggestions. I went for Debian 12. However, I still encounter a few problems.
I installed Debian 12 in the way like you suggested and everything went well.
I installed JACK and qjackctl. Upon opening Qjackctl and set it up correctly (alsa driver: hw1 usb dacmagic)
the driver loads perfectly.

However, the problems arise when I want to configure the patchbay of qjackctl. I don't see the input and output sockets/plugs for the option 'audio' and only 1 for the option 'alsa' which is a midi thru (?)

I installed Carla and after a lot of experimentation I was able to load a lv2 plugin using carla's patchbay but came across another set of problems (it won't load many lv2 plugins stating the plugin isn't in the URI directories, or Carla's patchbay, after drawing it correctly and testing it, it reconfigures back to default even when a new track is loaded in my playlist in Audacious...)
It's not really usable this way.

Isn't there a simple way to route ALL audio (including browser audio, programs like VLC and audacious) VIA a lv2 host to the main outputs?

[sunrat]

What plugins are you trying to load?
If you are using JACK, you can use standalone JACK plugins such as those from LSP. I use LSP Parametric EQ as room correction EQ. Load it from Qjackctl options "Execute script after Startup"

Code: Select all

lsp-plugins-para-equalizer-x16-stereo -c /home/roger/audio/LSP/ParaEQ-x16stereo_EVE_+sub.cfg & pactl load-module module-jack-sink channels=2 connect=no &

The "-c ... .cfg" bit is to load the saved plugin configuration file. You need to install "pulseaudio-module-jack" (in Debian) or whatever it's called in your distro.
and for "Execute script after Shutdown"

Code: Select all

killall lsp-plugins-para-equalizer-x16-stereo

Then connect in Graph and save as a Patchbay. This will route applications using Pulseaudio through the PEQ; for JACK applications, set the output to "para-equalizer-x16-stereo".
You could chainload (or parallel) other JACK plugins if you wish, just connect and save them in Graph/Patchbay.

If your distro uses Pipewire, there's probably a similar method but I'm not using it atm so someone else would have to chime in. In Debian 12, if you installed Gnome DE (maybe Mate and Cinnamon too?), you will have Pipewire as default. KDE and most other DEs still use Pulseaudio.

[soundspawner]

What plugins are you trying to load?
If you are using JACK, you can use standalone JACK plugins such as those from LSP. I use LSP Parametric EQ as room correction EQ. Load it from Qjackctl options "Execute script after Startup"

Code: Select all

lsp-plugins-para-equalizer-x16-stereo -c /home/roger/audio/LSP/ParaEQ-x16stereo_EVE_+sub.cfg & pactl load-module module-jack-sink channels=2 connect=no &

The "-c ... .cfg" bit is to load the saved plugin configuration file. You need to install "pulseaudio-module-jack" (in Debian) or whatever it's called in your distro.
and for "Execute script after Shutdown"

Code: Select all

killall lsp-plugins-para-equalizer-x16-stereo

Then connect in Graph and save as a Patchbay. This will route applications using Pulseaudio through the PEQ; for JACK applications, set the output to "para-equalizer-x16-stereo".
You could chainload (or parallel) other JACK plugins if you wish, just connect and save them in Graph/Patchbay.

If your distro uses Pipewire, there's probably a similar method but I'm not using it atm so someone else would have to chime in. In Debian 12, if you installed Gnome DE (maybe Mate and Cinnamon too?), you will have Pipewire as default. KDE and most other DEs still use Pulseaudio.

Thank you for the support, appreciate it

So, the only plugin I need is "rubberband stereo pitch shifter" as a LV2 plugin or LADSPA if that's any easier to set up (I am not sure if LV2 is more memory-efficient than LADSPA or something...)
Thus, all my output, from audactious/vlc/browser audio needs to be routed through rubberband. This worked back on Ubuntu 14 using JACK and jack-rack (though browser audio wasn't playing...)
I could use Pulseeffects but then I need Pulseaudio and I disabled that because I want to use JACK which connects perfectly with my DAC and I can tweak all kinds of things with the audioserver that way.

RIght now I installed Debian 12 but I am more than happy using AVL or another distro but I need to be sure that what I want will work on that distro before actually installing it and spending hours to get it right.

[Impostor]

So, the only plugin I need is "rubberband stereo pitch shifter" as a LV2 plugin or LADSPA if that's any easier to set up (I am not sure if LV2 is more memory-efficient than LADSPA or something...)
Thus, all my output, from audactious/vlc/browser audio needs to be routed through rubberband.

For lv2 plugins, you can use jalv (you can install this from the kx.studio repo). If Jack's running, then for example

Code: Select all

~$ jalv http://calf.sourceforge.net/plugins/Phaser

will create a standalone jack app for Calf's Phaser lv2 plugin, which will be connectible in qjackctl's graph. You could put the above command in a startup script, and then with a persistent patchbay definition in qjackctl you can autoconnect it whenever you start qjackctl.

How you'd need to deal with plugin presets that's for you to figure out.

[soundspawner]

So, the only plugin I need is "rubberband stereo pitch shifter" as a LV2 plugin or LADSPA if that's any easier to set up (I am not sure if LV2 is more memory-efficient than LADSPA or something...)
Thus, all my output, from audactious/vlc/browser audio needs to be routed through rubberband.

For lv2 plugins, you can use jalv (you can install this from the kx.studio repo). If Jack's running, then for example

Code: Select all

~$ jalv http://calf.sourceforge.net/plugins/Phaser

will create a standalone jack app for Calf's Phaser lv2 plugin, which will be connectible in qjackctl's graph. You could put the above command in a startup script, and then with a persistent patchbay definition in qjackctl you can autoconnect it whenever you start qjackctl.

How you'd need to deal with plugin presets that's for you to figure out.

Thanks, I tried it with your example and that worked. i see the calf plugin in the graph window of Qjackctl and I was able to route it correctly. However, this method doesn't seem to work with rubberband lv2 plugin.
I checked the official github page:

https://github.com/breakfastquay/rubberband

to find the correct URI to load with calv. I tried everything...

As a side note: I was able to paste the script in the start script on startup field in the settings of Qjackctl and saved it. Upon starting Qjackctl I noticed it loaded correctly, but then terminated without showing any error...

[Impostor]

to find the correct URI to load with calv. I tried everything...

The command

Code: Select all

lv2ls

lists all uri's of lv2 plugins on your system (properly installed, and also those in the ~/.lv2 folder.

Also, if you use jalv in a script, you should end the command with & so that it will run in the background even if the bash session initiated by said script is closed again (or something like that).

EDIT, well, that's what I thought should happen. Seems a bit troublesome here...

This seems to work in a qjackctl after-startup script:

jalv -i http://www.breakfastquay.com/rubberband#Stereo &

[Loki Harfagr]

Long ago to ease my finding of lv2 address I added this function in my .bashrc:

Code: Select all

LV2LS() { lv2ls 2>/dev/null | grep --color=auto -i "${1}" ; } 

then I get it simple and clear, eg:

Code: Select all

 LV2LS whirl
http://gareus.org/oss/lv2/b_whirl#extended
http://gareus.org/oss/lv2/b_whirl#simple